F. Scott Fitzgerald

Writer

Born: 24 September 1896

Died: 21 December 1940 (heart attack)

Birthplace: St. Paul, Minnesota

Best known as: The author of The Great Gatsby

Name at birth: Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald

F. Scott Fitzgerald was one of the best known American authors of the 1920s and '30s and is closely associated with the optimism and excesses of that era's "Jazz Age." Fitzgerald's stories often featured people like himself: middle-American types infatuated with the wealth and status of upper-crust society. In the mid-1920s he lived in Paris where he was friends with Ernest Hemingway and other literary expatriates. Fitzgerald was a popular celebrity of the day and he and his wife, Zelda, became famous for their extravagant lifestyle, drinking bouts and (eventually) erratic behavior. His major published novels include This Side of Paradise (1920), The Great Gatsby (1925), and Tender Is the Night (1934).

Extra credit: Fitzgerald was named for his distant cousin, Francis Scott Key, the composer of the American National Anthem... Other American writers of Fitzgerald's era included John Steinbeck, Langston Hughes and William Faulkner.